If some yard improvements are on the agenda this year, it's the perfect chance to lower your home's carbon footprint and even put it to work for you.
Think about investing some sweat equity into your yard: it's an extremely cost-effective way to improve your homestead. It's good for your health and the environment and, well, it's pretty darn fun.
OK, now that you're on board and ready to dig, think about what you want to accomplish. Things to consider:
- Letting go of the lawn -- the water and care that a lawn requires is, sorry, absurd. Consider replanting it entirely with thyme, mixed dwarf fescue or native buffalo grass.
- Even if you can't abandon it entirely, your new yard design should minimize the grassy area.
- First step: vegetable garden. This one is a no-brainer. Dig up some grass (yes, this step is a pain), use some compost to enrich the soil (many cities have free piles for resident use) and start planting. The first year might be a little light on the output, especially without a Miracle Gro crutch, but this is a long-term project.
- Other ways to reduce your lawn: Border plantings of native grasses -- try switch grass or bluestem. Install a compost area. Trees! A perennial bed of native plants, like black-eyed Susans and coneflowers.
- Rain barrels are great and can render your hose useless. Ann Arbor even gives a tax credit for their use. Watch this HGTV video on how-to build a barrel for tips.
- Whatever lawn remains, mow long and leave the clippings in place. 'Nuff said.
Please keep in mind that gardening is not about instant gratification. There is a famous saying, quite applicable here, that time is a gardener's best friend. We're so used to seeing monster geraniums and impatiens that are chemically fed and live for just a few months that our "beauty-meter" is out of tune. What grows around us naturally might be less showy, but its beauty is more than skin deep.
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
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